Sunday, January 25, 2009

A Long Day in Johnson County

I headed out Thursday morning to get caught up on some of the new caches in Johnson County. We have a great bunch of cachers over in this part of the state who have been very busy lately putting out caches like crazy and from what I hear they are just getting started. I stopped in Clarksville and grabbed a couple in town and then made my way toward the Harmony area where I was able to get at least one FTF on a new puzzle cache hidden by the King and Queen of Arkansas geocachers RKLMBL.While I was at one cache location the sounds of the nearby creek just kept calling to me so I spent a bit of time along the banks of this small creek taking photos. It was still a little foggy upstream but this spot was just clear enough to get a few good shots. We have not had much rain lately so there was not a lot of water in the creek but I found this one spot that had some nice rocks in the middle of the creek creating a tiny set of waterfalls. After leaving there I cleared the Harmony area of all but one cache that I had not completed the puzzle on it yet.

I then headed over toward Horsehead Lake and down to Hunt where I found a few more and DNF'd one that I should not have if I had read the previous logs. Sometimes that helps. Many miles and many caches later I ended up stopping along the road at the Sacred Heart Church and cemetery to take a few photos.

After spending quite a bit of time shooting photos of the large cross in the cemetery I headed on down to Hartman to find a few caches there. I especially enjoyed the Hartman Veterans Cache. It was a great setup on this multi in a wonderfully kept cemetery. After finishing up in Hartman I grabbed three more on the way back to Clarksville. I really enjoyed my tour of Johnson County and look forward to returning again for more geocaching and photo opportunities.

As I was getting closer to Russellville on the way home I noticed in my rear view mirror that the sun was quickly going down and there was already quite a bit of color in the sky so I decided to head on over to Lake Dardanelle State Park to see if I could get some good sunset photos. Arriving just as the sun was beginning to drop below the ridges in the distance, I grabbed my camera bag and tripod and ran to the back deck of the visitors center. It's amazing how fast the sun, or the moon, goes down. You can actually see it disappearing before your eyes. The best color for a sunset is the few minutes after the sun finally disappears below the horizon and it helps a lot if there are a few clouds in the sky to help broadcast the light from the sun and create that wonderful color. I spent the next fifteen minutes trying different compositions trying to get that perfect picture. When the color began to fade I packed up and headed on home to rest after this very long and productive day.

So I will leave you with one my favorite photos of the sunset. Until next time.